"Uncle Jules, you're truly a gifted man," Arthur said with a rare smile, giving a sincere thumbs-up.
He and Javier had disguised themselves as traveling merchants, heading north under assumed names to hunt down Cyril and his son John. It had taken them nearly twenty days, through rain, muddy trails, and half a dozen false leads, but they had finally found them.
Needless to say, the process had been brutal. Even now, Javier's face was etched with fatigue, dark rings under his eyes and his beard unshaven. It wasn't hard to imagine the trouble they'd faced evading tolls, bandits, and suspicious riders on the Kingsroad.
Jules had confirmed that Cyril and John were holed up in a rundown farmstead near the Beauty Market—a bustling riverland town not far from Maidenpool—protected by a group of armed gamblers and debt collectors.
There were too many for two men to handle, so Jules and Javier had returned for reinforcements.
Arthur guessed the truth of it immediately: Cyril and his son had likely been detained, not sheltered, by the gamblers. But what concerned him more was whether these thugs knew they had stolen seven hundred gold dragons—a staggering sum for smallfolk and even minor lords.
This matter had to be dealt with swiftly. Arthur knew Master Spinach, his steward in charge of finances, was barely keeping things balanced with that money gone. If they delayed and the gamblers spent it or gambled it away, Arthur would recover a corpse—but not his gold.
"Pick five of our strongest veterans, men who've trained with a real sword and survived," Arthur ordered Javier with no delay.
Javier gave a firm nod and walked off to fulfill the task.
Jules, meanwhile, looked at Arthur with the hopeful eyes of a boy waiting for a promised gift.
"Don't worry," Arthur said with a wry smile, "your armor won't be forgotten. We'll visit King's Landing when this is over and pick out something proper from Tobho Mott's forge—maybe a nice longsword and a bigger warhammer for me, too."
Jules scoffed and rolled his eyes. "Hmph."
He walked off, clearly unconvinced, though Arthur hadn't meant to break his word—just delay it. After all, a set of decent armor wasn't something you could pick up in a rural market town. If the Beauty Market stocked Valyrian steel, Westeros would've collapsed long ago.
With preparations made, the eight of them—Arthur, Javier, Jules, and five picked veterans—rode out at once, pushing their mounts hard through the falling dusk.
By the time they reached the decrepit farmstead, it was past midnight. The ride had been brutal—long, cold, and without pause. But they had arrived.
To their fortune, the armed gamblers were nowhere in sight—likely off drinking or dicing in the taverns of the Beauty Market. But Cyril… he was still here.
Arthur found the old man slumped in a corner, white-haired and ghost-pale, a dagger buried in his gut. Blood pooled around him like wine spilled in haste.
Arthur frowned. Despite everything, he felt an odd twinge of pity.
Cyril had been a servant for two generations of Brackens, once loyal, now broken. It was hard to see him like this.
But seven hundred gold dragons were missing, and sentiment wouldn't bring them back.
"Where's your son John? Where's my money? Speak!" Arthur barked.
The flickering torchlight glinted off Cyril's clotted wound as he opened his eyes. His breathing was shallow.
"It's you… little master," he rasped.
The term struck Arthur strangely. Cyril had served both his father and himself, and used the phrase to distinguish them. But now, it felt like mockery.
"Still using honorifics?" Arthur snapped. "Think that'll buy my forgiveness? Don't be absurd."
He had no time for the groveling of traitors. The original Arthur Bracken may well have died because of this old fool.
"I'm sorry… ugh…" Cyril groaned, pressing the dagger wound as if it would stop the bleeding. "I—I stole the money, poisoned your drink. I was desperate. I shouldn't have…"
Arthur cut him off coldly. "Where are the gold dragons?"
"John… took them," Cyril wheezed. "To the gaming tables. He wanted to win it back."
Arthur felt his jaw tighten. "Should I finish him off now?" he asked Javier, nodding toward the old man.
"No need," Javier said calmly, eyeing the spreading blood beneath Cyril. "He'll be dead before morning."
"I don't want him recovering after we leave," Arthur muttered, almost to himself.
"I say give him another stab for good measure," Jules chimed in, scowling. "Seven hundred dragons. Seven hundred."
Cyril looked up, a trace of shame in his eyes. "My lord… you are your father's son. Straight and stern. Will you… hear my confession? Let a dying man cleanse his soul?"
Arthur sneered. "Why should I waste breath on a man who wasted my coin and poisoned my drink?"
He turned instead to Jules. "Where do we find John?"
"They'll come back," Jules answered. "The gamblers don't have another hideout. But tonight, they're probably holed up in the main gambling den in the Beauty Market. There's a night watch stationed there. Not easy to break in unnoticed."
Arthur nodded. "Then we wait here. I'm half-dead from that ride already—and I imagine you lot are no better."
The others heard Arthur's command and quietly went off to find a comfortable place to rest. When the gamblers returned, there would be a fight—one likely to spill blood on the hay-covered floors of the farmstead. They needed to be in top form. Even the unsullied of Astapor rested before battle, and they were trained from birth.
Arthur, burdened now by his status as lord, found a creaky chair by the wall and sat down. He didn't want to lie on the cold, damp ground like his soldiers. That was fine for hedge knights and footmen—but not for the heir of House Bracken, even a minor branch.
"I grew up with your father, we…" Cyril was muttering weakly, his voice like the wheeze of a dying man. Arthur wanted to punch him just to make him shut up, but in the firelight, the sight of his gray, sunken face made even vengeance feel petty.
Why argue with the dead?
Yes, in Arthur's mind, Cyril was already a corpse—he just hadn't stopped breathing yet.
But the old servant didn't seem to care if Arthur listened or not. He kept rambling, broken words spilling like water from a cracked skin. Arthur's body resisted sleep—his internal clock shaped by early mornings and battlefield watches—so against his better judgment, he listened.
The old man's tale could be summed up in one sentence: Don't despise the poor when young, don't despise the poor when old—and never expect mercy from fate.
Perhaps later, there'd be some maudlin tale of tomb robbers crying at Winterfell's crypts or white walkers shaking their heads in pity north of the Wall. But for now, this was Cyril's story alone.
"When I accepted the smallness of my parents, and even my own smallness," Cyril said, coughing, "I never accepted John's. So I… I pushed him."
He was speaking of his son again. Arthur kept listening. Maybe it was because he knew what was coming next. Maybe he just needed something to distract him from the fire in his legs.
It really was a tragedy.
Cyril and Arthur's father had grown up together—one a noble's son, the other a servant's boy. Though Lord Bracken had always been fair, Cyril could never quite stay in line. He dreamed beyond his station, like Samwell Tarly dreaming of knighthood.
Still, fate was cruel. The two boys became men, and their sons were born the same year—John and Arthur.
Cyril dreamed anew.
He saved what little he earned to send John to study with septons in Seagard, hoping the boy would find wisdom. Later, he paid for John to train with a free knight who passed through the Beauty Market. But not all wandering knights were like Ser Barristan the Bold. Some were more like Ser Meryn Trant—brutes for hire.
John turned sour fast—learning only arrogance and gambling. Cyril's hopes soured with him.
Arthur, by contrast, was every inch the lord's son—tall, handsome, well-mannered. His father trained him with patience, taught him swordplay and sums, and poured every copper into his education. And even then, Arthur's father never treated Cyril poorly—he helped John when he could.
"That kindness…" Cyril rasped. "Each time he helped, it was like a needle in my ribs."
Once, when John was caught thieving from a Braavosi trader, Lord Bracken himself paid the damages and brought the boy home. And Cyril hated him all the more for it.
Even after Lord Bracken died—choked on a blood clot during a banquet—Cyril couldn't find it in him to hate the man. "He was good," he whispered. "Too good. And I… I had no reason to hate him, and yet I did. I hated him because he was everything I couldn't be. And he made me feel small."
He coughed, the sound wet. "John's debts piled up. At first, I tried to repay them myself. I swore I'd never steal from you. But when they said they'd take his hand…"
His voice cracked.
"I'm sorry, truly sorry. I was a coward. I poisoned your drink and took your money. I thought I could fix it before you woke."
"When I heard you were alive, I felt less cursed. But John… he came back. Said he'd used some to pay his debts. But the rest…"
Cyril reached a trembling hand toward his gut wound, sticky with blood.
"He stabbed me. Took the rest of the gold. All of it."
He turned his head weakly, gazing at Arthur with cloudy eyes.
"I just wanted to tell you. I thought if I did, I'd die easier."
"Little lord," he added. "I know our sins are great. But… if you must find John…"
His voice was just a breath now.
"Let him die quickly. That's all I ask. It's the only kindness I have left to give him."
JOIN MY PATREON TO READ ADVANCE 40+ CHAPTERS
Patreon.com/Kora_1